Claudia Been-Munnings oozes authenticity, positivity, and a passion for people development. From teaching in high school to influencing the learning and development at Pelican Energy TCI PETCI, formerly FortisTCI as Director of Learning and Organizational Development, she has always inspired growth and transformation in others.
Claudia typically operates from a perspective of what constitutes success. “I guess that comes from my years of teaching young children in school, where success doesn’t have to mean being first or second,” she points out. “Success could just be an improvement.” Any kind of positive change or progress in a person associated with her feels like success to her; it can be as simple as a movement toward the goal.
“Success for me has always been the ability to see positive movement in people, the ability to inspire, and to see that what I invest in people actually resonates with them and that they are able to use it to create a positive outcome for themselves,” Claudia says.
The path leading to leadership in Learning and Development
Claudia credits her career in learning and development to her genetics. She is a part of the Robinson family, pioneers in education in the Turks and Caicos Islands. Her grand-aunts were educators, her father was a teacher, and many of her family members, who she never thought would end up in classrooms, are now university professors. She remembers that as a child, during summer holidays, she would play school; the plants were her students. She would write on the walls to teach everything from Mathematics and English to Science.
After completing her Associate Degree, and having no clear idea of what she wanted to do for her Bachelor’s, she filled in temporarily at the high school in Grand Turk. That brief experience before heading off to university, awakened a love for teaching and led her to returning to the classroom as a teacher for six years, on completion of her studies.
Following her teaching career, Claudia moved to Beaches Turks and Caicos, a part of Sandals Resorts, initially as the Public Relations Manager and shortly after, moving to the then Personnel Department. Under her leadership and guidance, supplemented with certifications from Sandals Training and international bodies, the department evolved to a full-fledged Human Resources entity, servicing the resorts approximately thirteen hundred local and regional team members. She credits hotel managers like the late Jeff McKitty and Jeremy Jones for their confidence in her ability to transfer knowledge into building a successful HR culture for Beaches Turks and Caicos.
2008 brought a new employment opportunity at the Turks and Caicos Islands Airports Authority where she spent the next eight years crafting a Human Resources Department within this heavily regulated environment. Here, training and development were a part of the day-to-day duties, and Claudia became a Certified Airport Security Operations Trainer and a DFT Level Five Aviation Security Instructor for X-ray Operations. She also completed coaching, mentoring and HOP’s training and certifications.
In 2016, she joined FortisTCI (now Pelican Energy TCI) as the Human Resources Director, and in 2022, with the restructuring of the department, she stepped into her current role as Director of Learning and Organizational Development.
Factors that make Pelican Energy TCI (formerly FortisTCI) a great place to work
Pelican Energy TCI is a leading electricity utility company, providing reliable, least-cost power to homes and businesses across the Turks and Caicos Islands. Claudia calls it one of the most progressive organizations in the country, with a reputation as the “employer of choice.” She also points out that Pelican Energy TCI has a “very family-oriented environment.”
Although it is a small organization, the company’s 172 team members are professionals to the core. Claudia says that their level of professionalism and mastery of work, while remaining true to themselves, is not an experience she could have gotten anywhere else. She was also drawn to Pelican Energy TCI because, even in 2016, it had devoted a significant amount of financial resources to learning and development as well as having significant investment in community ventures across the Turks and Caicos.
“That alone indicated to me that this was a company that wanted to see people grow and develop, not just as employees, but as good corporate citizens” she says. “From a work perspective, we want team members to identify with the organization and build a career here, not just say “I work there,” but “I have a career there. I see growth there. I have a profession there.” All these factors made and continue to make the company very attractive to Claudia.
Creating a separate Learning and Development stream
The restructuring of the Human Resources department allowed for an in-depth focus on People and Culture and Learning and Organizational Development. The transition, ably led by then Vice President of Corporate Services and CFO Aisha Laporte, focused on enhancing the employee experience, ensuring that every facet of the employee life cycle – from recruitment to onboarding to development and departure – was positively impactful on all team members.
Interestingly, for Claudia, this leadership development also exemplified her “win” as a teacher, as the Vice President of Corporate Services is one of her former students. “I taught her in high school,” she says. “Now, she is leading me as my vice president.” I am so proud and get emotional seeing the success of former students, and having one leading me, even more so” she adds. “For me, that says, well done.”
Despite the creation of separate work streams, the workload didn’t decrease,” Claudia points out. “We still wear many hats, but now we focus more on our team members’ personal and professional development, strategically setting them up with career development plans which encompass short, medium and long-term goals.”
“In collaboration with a Learning Consultant, our L&D team helps guide the process, build it, and then monitor it, but ultimately, we want each Team Member to create and own their goals,” Claudia says. “We can then work with team members to determine what type of training they would need in order to satisfy those goals.” For some, the training could be done in-house, while for others, it may require enrolling in a certificate course or placing them on a degree track to gain more formal learning, or in a technical program, where both theoretical and practical learning occurs.
This process gave Claudia and her team even more opportunities to interface with team members. Each career development plan was created in-person with a consultant or with an L&D Team Member. The process began with personality and learning style assessments followed by personalized meetings for plan drafting, sign off and implementation. With the monitoring and assessment now ongoing, one on one meetings are critical. “This also allows us to build rapport with team members who we may not interact with daily and that constant connection is vital to our employee engagement.,” she says.
Contribution to Employee Engagement
Since joining Pelican Energy TCI, Claudia has led a number of initiatives in employee engagement. When she arrived in 2016, the organization had just received its Investors in People – Standard certification, an internationally recognized people management accreditation ranking organizations in the way they lead, support and improve their people for better business results and a more engaged workforce. Certification is given at four levels, Standard – developed, Silver – established, Gold – advanced and Platinum – high performing, rewarding an organization’s maturity in the IIP framework. Pelican Energy TCI’s journey had just begun and three years later, in 2018, the company recertified at the Silver level completing 7 of the 9 themes.
In 2022, Claudia and her team had aimed to achieve a “solid Silver, all 9 themes;” no small feat, as they had just come out of the COVID-19 pandemic and undergone an organizational restructuring exercise. Their employees had worked remotely for a long time, and the team was only beginning to regroup, but they still succeeded in securing that solid Silver recertification.
And this year, in 2025, the Human Resources team led by People & Culture aimed to achieve Gold. According to her, the recertification process saw an impressive 93% employee participation rate, excellent in terms of employee engagement. Pelican Energy TCI achieved Platinum accreditation, indicating that the company’s people management was at a high performing level. The key collaborative strategy was to ensure that every team member felt included and was able to express the value of that inclusion. They were invited to all the pre-meetings, they explored the various themes and indicators, they contributed examples of how they felt they were invested in.
Additionally, in 2023, led by People and Culture, the company reset its values and came up with the acronym “I CARE,” representing Integrity, Community, Agility, Reliability, and Empathy. According to Claudia, those values were also incorporated into their Investors in People recertification process highlighting the importance of why integrity matters, why building our community counts, why having agility is important, why reliability is crucial, and why empathy is absolutely necessary both ways. “I believe that approach carried us a long way and even allowed us to move from Silver, bypassing Gold, to Platinum level,” Claudia says. “Today, we proudly present ourselves as a ‘Platinum’ organization.”
Responsibilities of Director of Learning and Organizational Development
For Claudia, a typical workday involves strategic work in learning and development and routine administrative tasks related to daily operations. The role calls on her to continuously provide strategic direction to the President & CEO with regard to training, organizational structure, and related matters.
She also regularly reviews and monitors succession planning, assisting in the crafting of the policies and procedures which support the process. This according to her, is crucial because the Turks and Caicos Islands rely on expatriate labor especially in the more specialized technical areas. The company focuses on providing regular training and learning programs so established team members are ready to step into key positions, through maintaining a cycle of employee development. For the newer team members, this is facilitated via apprenticeship and internship programs throughout the organization.
Additionally, Pelican Energy TCI has other programs including summer internship and employment programs for high school, college, and university students. “The university students in particular, spend six weeks with us, and they are fully immersed in work along with producing capstone projects on utility and sustainability related topics,” she adds.
Being aware of the existing skills gaps in the Turks and Caicos, Claudia and her team began addressing them at the high school and community college levels. They have built connections with students at secondary and tertiary level, encouraging studies in the sciences and technical subjects which support careers in the utility field. “We have had success in this approach with students from our summer programs” she says. PETCI also provides scholarships for team members to pursue studies in those critical demand areas.
Under Claudia’s leadership in the Learning and Organizational Development department, a custom designed Emerging Leaders’ Development Program, called “PROPEL – Empowered to Lead.” was created for the company’s emerging talent. It cultivates internal talent by creating an environment where potential leaders can explore, grow, and develop leadership and management learning portfolios. According to Claudia, the focus is on building the knowledge, skills, and behaviors needed as they progress through the ranks.
“This very innovative program was enthusiastically received by the first cohort of participants and will be a staple in the L&D calendar of leadership training,” she points out.
Claudia and her team monitor executive learning through directorship courses and similar programs as well. Learning and Development is also responsible for guiding performance management. They align performance goals and development plans with career development plans, and ensure they are integrated. This forms part of the day-to-day planning they manage and maintain for the organization.
The Post-Retirement Plans
Claudia is looking forward to retiring from corporate business and having the opportunity to devote more time to her private businesses. She is currently juggling those responsibilities alongside her role at Pelican Energy TCI.
Consulting work is definitely something she intends to focus on after her retirement, given her years of experience in the fields of human resources, staff management, life skills and coaching.
Outside her professional zone, Claudia is an active member of the Turks and Caicos Islands National Trust (TCNT) and currently sits as the Chairperson of the Council. The TCNT’s mission is to preserve, conserve, and restore the natural heritage and historical landmarks of the Turks and Caicos Islands and increase public awareness and education about the country’s rich natural, cultural, and historical legacy. This resonates deeply with her, being a former science teacher and having accompanied many groups of students to and through environmentally related programs over the years.
A highlight of her tenure as Chairperson was attending the 2025 Global Sustainable Tourism Training and Conference, in Fiji. The event brought together international leaders, policymakers, and practitioners in sustainable tourism to exchange knowledge and strategies for balancing heritage conservation with economic development. “Interestingly, the opportunity to use learning and development strategies remain at the forefront of my thinking when attending sessions like these” she says. “Strategic organizational development in and management of our human assets will be critical, as the TCNT begins to apply global best practices in heritage and environmental conservation and builds institutional capacity and community awareness around responsible tourism.” She intends to continue her voluntary contributions to the National Trust for “as long as they will have me” she says laughing.
Claudia is passionate about cooking and baking. She plans to dedicate more time to it once she retires. “As long as there are friends and family willing to eat what I make,” she says with a smile. “Otherwise, I will end up having my cake and eating it too.”
